Metropolitan (film)

This article is about the 1990 film. For the 1935 film of the same name, see Metropolitan (1935 film).

Metropolitan
Promotional poster for Metropolitan
Directed by	Whit Stillman
Produced by	Whit Stillman
Written by	Whit Stillman
Starring	Edward Clements Chris Eigeman Carolyn Farina Taylor Nichols Dylan Hundley
Music by	Jock Davis Tom Judson Mark Suozzo
Cinematography	John Thomas
Editing by	Christopher Tellefsen
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	August 3, 1990 (USA)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Box office	$2,938,208 (USA)

Metropolitan is the first film by director and screenwriter Whit Stillman. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Synopsis

Shot on location in Manhattan and Long Island, the movie depicts the lives of young, upper-class New Yorkers (or, as one character calls them, the "Urban Haute Bourgeoisie") during debutante ball season while home for winter break in their first year of college. Middle-class Princeton student Tom Townsend, an admirer of Charles Fourier's socialism, observes this comedy of manners with an outsider's distance but eventually becomes deeply attached to the characters he meets.

Cast

• Carolyn Farina as Audrey Rouget, a young debutante.
• Edward Clements as Tom Townsend, a Princeton attendee who falls into Audrey's group of friends.
• Chris Eigeman as Nick Smith, a cynical Harvard attendee who takes Tom under his wing.
• Taylor Nichols as Charlie Black, a Yale attendee and intellectual philosopher who is wary of Tom.
• Allison Rutledge-Parisi as Jane Clark, a Vassar attendee who is Audrey's best friend.
• Dylan Hundley as Sally Fowler, a Brown University attendee who lets the group use her parents Upper East Side apartment for their nightly get-togethers.
• Isabel Gillies as Cynthia McLean, Sally's best friend from Columbia University.
• Bryan Leder as Fred Neff, a college graduate, alcoholic, and mutual friend of the group.
• Will Kempe as Rick Von Sloneker, a rival of Nick and Tom.
• Ellia Thompson as Serena Slocum, Tom's ex-girlfriend who is dating Rick Von Sloneker.
• Stephen Uys as Victor Lemley

Production

Whit Stillman wrote the screenplay for Metropolitan between 1984 and 1988 while he was running an illustration agency in New York and financed it by selling his apartment for $50,000 as well as acquiring few contributions from family members and friends. He claims that the movie is based on a string of real-life events that happened to him late in 1970, while he was living with his divorced mother in Washington D.C.. While on Christmas break during his first year at Harvard University, he met a group of like-minded college students from various universities around the country. Each night, he and his new group of friends would attend formal ballroom dance parties at various hotels and conventions halls, and then retire to an after-hours gathering at one of the students' parents' houses in nearby Georgetown. The group would then spend the remainder of the night talking, debating, and discussing a wide range of topics. This nightly ritual eventually ended just after New Year's Day when Stillman and the rest of the group returned to their respective schools.

Awards

• Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay
• Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature

Credits & titles

The credits and title card font is Antique Roman, the typeface usual in formal party invitations like those the characters receive.

External links

• Metropolitan at the Internet Movie Database
• Metropolitan at AllRovi
• Criterion Collection essay by Luc Sante